Patrick launches border security TV ad

Note: Updates below with responses from the three Republicans running against Patrick:

Sen. Dan Patrick, one of four Republicans running for lieutenant governor, released his first TV ad Tuesday, using the 30-second spot to paint himself as the only GOP candidate “to oppose in-state tuition for illegal immigrants.”

Patrick’s campaign said in a news release that the ad is set to air on Fox News on all major Texas markets and select smaller markets that cover Republican primary voters. The campaign did not release a dollar figure for the ad buy.

UPDATE No. 2: Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples, the Republican candidate for lite guv who voted for an in-state tuition bill as a senator in 2001, told Texas Politics the Patrick ad is a “lie and is a shame and deceptive to the voters.”

Staples pointed to a tidbit from a from a tea party-sponsored debate Thursday in Clear Lake in which he said the in-state tuition law should be repealed because “it was predicated on the assumption those students would correct their status” and that has not been the case.

“I’m glad to hear you talk about it today …. governor Dewhurst and Sen. Patrick have been in the Senate and they have not changed the law,” Staples said at the debate. “I will as lieutenant governor” (video below).

Update No. 3: In a statement, Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson also shot back at Patrick, accusing him of lying in his ad. Like Staples, Patterson also pointed to a portion of the Clear Lake debate from last week — this one in which Patrick acknowledges that Patterson “told theEl Paso newspaper back in February that you oppose in-state tuition for illegals” (audio below).

“There’s no polite way to put this – Dan Patrick is lying,” Patterson said. “Unlike others in this race, I didn’t vote for and I would have never voted for or supported in-state tuition for illegal aliens. Senator Patrick knows that fact. He knows that I am on the record on that fact. He personally mentioned it in a joint appearance just four days ago. And he knows that his TV ad is a lie.”